Poster #18 - Exploring the Links Between Brain Sensitivity to Emotional Vocalizations in Infancy and Empathy-Related-Behavior in Toddlerhood

• In Event: 3-159 - Poster Session 12
  In Poster Session: PS 12 Section - Biological Processes: Neuroscience and Genetics

Integrative Statement

Prior behavioral work has shown that from very early in human ontogeny, infants respond sensitively to emotional vocalizations of other infants (see e.g., Dondi et al., 1999). Recent neurophysiological research further supports these behavioral findings by showing that 8-month-old infants’ brains distinguish between crying and laughing sounds of a peer (Missana et al., 2017). However, it is unclear whether and how the human brain’s early-emerging sensitivity to peer vocalizations links to later-developing empathy-related behaviors.
Therefore, in the current longitudinal study, we investigated the association between processing peer emotional expressions in infancy using event-related brain potentials (ERPs) and empathy-related behavior by adapting a previously established empathic helping with toddlers (Nichols, Svetlova, Brownell, 2014). More specifically, we examined the hypothesis that enhanced neural sensitivity to hearing another infant in distress (crying) at 8 months will be associated with greater empathy-related behaviors when hearing a baby doll cry. At 8 months of age, infant listened to emotional vocalizations (crying and laughing sounds) of a peer while we measured their ERP responses. At 18 months of age, the same infants behavioral responses (levels of empathic concern and levels of prosocial orientation and behavior) were examined when hearing a baby doll crying when compared to hearing a baby doll laughing. Confirming our hypothesis, there was a significant positive correlation between the ERP response (P3 measured at central electrodes) recorded to crying sounds at 8 months and prosocial orientation and behavior displayed when hearing another baby cry at 18 months , r(43) =.312, p=.042. Our analysis for the data collected at 18 months further revealed that children showed more empathic concern when listening to the crying baby than when listening to the laughing baby, t(40) = 2.446, p = .019, showing that at this age toddlers display more concern for others in distress.
The current results show that variability in brain responsivity to hearing others in distress in infancy is linked to empathy-related behavior in toddlerhood. This suggests that early-emerging sensitivity to emotional vocal expressions might be seen as a developmental precursor to later-developing empathic competencies. These findings support the view that basic other-oriented affective processes play a foundational role in the early development of human empathy.

Authors

• Manuela Missana, Leipzig University
  Presenting Author

• Nicole Altvater-Mackensen, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz
  Non-Presenting Author

• Amrisha Vaish, The University of Virginia
  Non-Presenting Author

• Tobias Grossmann, University of Virginia
  Non-Presenting Author